It’s strange what triggers me to dig deep

I was having a frustrating afternoon yesterday trying to get a new phone purchased, and ended up waiting in a never-ending line to talk to a customer service rep in hopes of getting my problem solved. So I jumped on twitter to distract myself and saw the quote below, and it spoke to me in a way nothing else has in a very long time.

“To heal, we must remember. It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation.”  

(President-elect Joe Biden at a ceremony to commemorate the many people lost to covid-19)

Last night I pondered on whether healing from loss really required remembering, and if it does, then is that why so many adoptees in closed adoptions struggle so much over the years. And if that’s true, then there’s a whole lot of adoptees like me who will never have that type of closure, never truly get past it.

And no, I don’t mean to infer we’ll always be in the midst of actively trying to find lasting peace, merely, that we will always be revisiting those feelings as they come up throughout our lives. It makes sense in a way, I remember worrying something was wrong with me when mom passed, that I’d only teared up from time to time while I did what I had to do right after she passed. And worrying about that again, when I had to determine what to do with everything in her home and deal with anything else that comes when someone passes. But with mom, it was just like with dad, I didn’t actively mourn dad’s passing because I knew he wanted to go. Instead, I had good memories popping up to remind me what we’d shared and kept him with me, same now happens with mom, they are both with me because they raised me and I have memories. 

If the above holds true, then because I have no active memories of my mother and father the normal grieving process never happens and leaves a void that isn’t ever going to fully close. And if that’s the case, then it means we will always have times we are reminded we lost our mother and father at birth, but were never gifted the chance to know them, grow to love them, or have settling knowledge and memories that leaves you comforted when they come to mind.

 

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